Reintroducing Nvidia’s Titanium Sniper, the EVGA GTX 550 Ti

Not long ago we reintroduced Nvidia’s “Tank”, the GTX 580/570, as a much leaner, meaner and faster machine – all the while improving on the thermals, power draw and noise of the reference GTX 480/470. Shortly thereafter, another brand-new lighter GPU, codenamed “The Hunter”, the GTX 560Ti launched bringing with it all of the features of its big brother but at a lower price and with somewhat reduced performance.

The Tank refers particularly to Nvidia’s flagship video cards which are equipped to handle any gaming situation at high resolution and with maximum details and with maximum filtering and anti-aliasing applied.  The Hunter is equipped especially for 1920×1200 gaming.  And now we re-introduce the new refined, Sniper – rebuilt in the same way as the Tank and the Hunter – as the GTX 550 Ti and especially suited for 1680×1050 gaming.

The Tank and  the Hunter are certainly not mainstream gaming and they are not the “sweet spot” for enthusiasts money-wise which is generally around $150. But there is a new kid on the block, the new and refined “Sniper”, Ti.  Last September, Nvidia introduced the first Sniper, GeForce GTS 450. To describe the capabilities of the GTS 450 when talking with gamers, Nvidia drew an analogy between a Sniper class unit from an RTS/RPG game.

Now Nvidia is introducing a new GeForce Sniper for gamers that’s even more powerful, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti! Yes, Ti stands for Titanium and it brings back fond memories of the old GeForce Ti series which offered excellent bang for buck back then.  We also note that the “S” designation in the GTS 450 has been replaced by an “X” as in GTX 550 Ti; the Sniper joins the Hunter and the Tank all as GTXes – gaming GPUs primarily.  Here is EVGA’s new overclocked GTX 560 Ti which will etail for the suggested price of $149.99.

Let us introduce Nvidia’s brand new reconfigured “Sniper”, the new GTX 550 Ti; the new GPU with much higher performance but evidently not set to replace GTX 460 which will continue to be made and sold.  This new Sniper is priced around $150 which is in-line with the GTS 450 pricing at its launch and also built for 1680×1050 gaming. Ti is going to take direct aim at especially the HD 5770 as well as the HD 6850 which are etail-priced around $129 and $149 respectively; especially after mail-in-rebates for the HD 6850. 

In our original review of the GTS 450 last September, we saw it go toe-to-toe with the HD 5770.   And now we are looking forward to the nearly 30 percent improvement with the new GTX 560 Ti that Nvidia promises over the original Sniper, the GTS 450 – all for the same price as when the 450 originally launched!

The reference version is above and its core is clocked at 900MHz.  For the same suggested etail price of $150 we see the EVGA GTX 550 Ti is overclocked to 951MHz – free performance!

Nvidia released its long awaited GeForce GTX based on its brand new Fermi DX11 GF100 architecture back in April of this year, six months later than AMD’s own DX11 Cypress video cards. This new Fermi GPU – Graphics Processing Unit – a term originally originated by Nvidia is a continuation of their strategy since their G80 which launched over three year ago to create a General Purpose Processor – co-equal with the CPU – that also renders amazing graphics. The culmination of Nvidia’s efforts with their GF100 DX11 Fermi architecture was the GTX 480 with the caveat that it runs rather hot and the cooling solutions based on the reference design are rather noisy.

Things changed very rapidly as Nvidia’s introduced a new refined GTX 400 series ‘Tank’, the Galaxy GTX 480 SuperOverclock on a mature process which we covered in this review. Shortly thereafter, enter the completely redesigned Nvidia Tank – at $499 suggested etail pricing and designed to be faster and more efficient than even the super-overclocked GTX 480s.

We saw AMD introduce their new line up, HD 68×0 series to replace HD 58×0 series in our review here. We found out that the “Barts” GPU it is based on is only a mid-range launch so far with the HD 6870 only slightly faster than the HD 5850; the best part is that it replaces it for less money. And about five weeks ago we saw AMD’s Cayman release in the form of HD 6970 and HD 6950. Nvidia took aim at the HD 6970 with the GTX 570, and most recently the GTX 560 Ti took on the HD 6870 and the HD 6950 and today we see the GTX 550 TI aiming at the HD 5770 and HD 6850 – AMD’s bread and butter.

You might also want to take a look at the original Fermi GF100 GTX 480 and quickly recap its new DX11 architecture and features of the original Fermi GF100 which we covered in our reviews of the GTX 480, published here, here and here. Senior Editor BFG10K reviewed GTX 470 here and here and Senior editor MrK covered GTX 465 here.

We also recently examined the performance of Galaxy’s GTX 480 SuperOverclock and we also reran GTX 480 against stock and overclocked versions of HD 5870, HD 6870 and HD 6850 here just a few weeks ago. A recent review covered the GTX 580 a few months ago. We also covered GTX 570 and the launch of the HD 69×0 series against GTX 460. And Senior Editor Leon Hyman covered GTX 460-768M vs. HD 5830 here.  GTX 560 Ti’ s launch was covered here.  Now you are up to date.

Specifications

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti was designed from the ground up to deliver exceptional tessellation performance, which is a key component of Microsoft’s DirectX 11 development platform for PC games. Tessellation allows game developers to take advantage of the GeForce GTX 550 GPU’s tessellation ability to increase the geometric complexity of models and characters to deliver far more realistic and visually rich gaming environments.

You will soon see that although the clocks of Nvidia’s GTX 550 Ti are clocked higher than the reference GTS 450 version, Nvidia kept their headroom for the new GPU! Because of that, EVGA was able to go much further than the reference core clock that Nvidia set for the GTX 550 Ti, while still remaining cool and quiet. Here is the specification chart for the GTX 550 Ti at a glance. Right away we notice the GTS 450’s clock is way up and now the new GPU supports the new HDMI 1.4a connector standard.

Now lets compare with the EVGA card

Needless to say, the new Fermi GF116 GTX 550 Ti brings a lot of features to the table that current Nvidia customers will appreciate, including improved CUDA’s PhysX, 2D and 3D Surround to drive up to 3 LCDs with GTX SLI and Tri-SLI, superb tessellation capabilities and a really fast GPU in comparison to their GT200 series and even their hot running GF100 series variants like GTX 465 and GTX 470 .

The GTX 550 has improved performance on a clock-per-clock basis that increase efficiency in many cases over the GTS 450. Besides that, Nvidia has increased the clock frequencies and the SMs are all operating more efficiently. We can expect that the GTX 460 and the GTX 550 Ti will perform similarly to each other and the newer GPU will be about 28% faster than the GTS 450 which launched for the same $150.

We also see the GTX 550 TI launch with 1GB of vRAM instead of the expected 768MB due to being engineered to use mixed density GDDR5 memory for the first time.

Beauty is more than skin deep

The GTS 450 was completely re-engineered at the transistor level into the GF116 GTX 550 Ti. Through a complete Fermi redesign on a mature process on TSMC’s 40 nm, the GTX 550 GPU achieves higher clockspeed than the GTS 450 with significantly more performance per watt and with fewer transistors.  Only one additional 6-pin PCIe connector (which may be supplied by molex adapters) is required.

Should you SLI your GTX 560 Ti?

SLI is supported by GTX 550 Ti and there is improved scaling. There are also recently more compelling reasons besides increased performance to consider GTX 550 Ti SLI which includes being able to experience Nvidia’s multi-display 2D/3D Surround.  It is an advantage to keep open the options of adding a second GTX 550 later on.

New Power Monitoring Hardware – or no more Furmark!

Nvidia has added a power draw limitation system to their card beginning with the GTX 580 and also with the GTX 570 and GTX 560 Ti. When either Furmark or OCCT are detected, sensors measure the incoming current and voltage to calculate the total power draw. If the power draw exceeds a certain predetermined limit, the GTX 560 Ti will automatically downclock to avoid damage to hardware components. After the power draw drops back to safe limits, the GPU returns to normal clocks much the same as with thermal management.

Because of this, we will no longer use Furmark for showing power draw and will return to using games to illustrate real world situations. Currently, this power management only switches on when Furmark or OCCT are detected and it should not limit overclocking unless Nvidia extends this management to regular PC games. Evidently this works by having the GeForce driver detect the program and treat it as a virus. In the case of the GTX 580 and the GTX 570, this power limiting circuitry implementation is mandatory by Nvidia’s parners. Like the case of the GTX 560 Ti, Nvidia allowed their partners to choose to include it – or not – with the GTX 550 Ti.

The EVGA GTX 550 Ti

Let’s look at what EVGA offers us over the reference and other partner versions  with their GTX 550-Ti:

·         Free version of 3DMark 11 Advanced Edition included. Users can redeem their code when the product is registered on EVGA.com. This is a $19.99 value. For more information, please visit http://www.evga.com/articles/00594/

·         Overclocked out of the box – This card offers a performance increase out of the box, attached is the product spec sheet which includes the details on clockspeeds.

·         Special Edition EVGA Precision – We created a special look of our popular software specifically for the EVGA GTX 550 Ti. This utility allows overclocking, monitoring and fanspeed adjustments. It is located on the DVD that ships with your card. For more information, please visit www.evga.com/precision/

·         EVGA OC Scanner – EVGA OC Scanner is fully supported by the EVGA GTX 550 Ti. This utility allows you to benchmark, monitor and stress test your EVGA card. For more information, please visit www.evga.com/ocscanner/

·         Voltage Tuning with EVGA ELEET – EVGA ELEET allows voltage tuning on a wide range of EVGA cards, including the GTX 550 Ti. For more information, please visit www.evga.com/eleet/

·         EVGA Customer Support – EVGA’s acclaimed customer support can be contacted by support ticket, email, and phone. For more information, please visit  http://www.evga.com/support/

·         EVGA Community – Active game servers, thriving forums, integrated chat and social networks allow users to ask questions or get help wherever they feel the most comfortable. For more information, please visit www.evga.com/community/

·         EVGA Warranty – EVGA offers a variety of warranties to fit your needs, including our exclusive 10 year Extended Warranty. For more information, please visit www.evga.com/warranty/

·         EVGA Advanced RMA Program – EVGA offers this service to help reduce the downtime of a customer’s system by shipping a replacement product first and lets our valued customer deal with the EVGA directly for quick and efficient service. For more information, please visit www.evga.com/ear/

The EVGA GTX 550 Ti is factory overclocked with a Dual BIOS which can be a card-saver if a flash goes bad. EVGA included their Precision overclocking software on the driver CD or as a download on their site; you can even raise the voltage.  This is a tool that we have often used with great results.  With a great warranty and advanced RMA’s optional, EVGA offers great service!

Warranty is superb.  Notice that you have 3 years that can be extended by registering,

This is the point where we usually show you our test system and head for benchmarking.  Sadly, our review sample was lost by UPS and another one is on the way from EVGA.  We should be able to bring you the benchmarks and our conclusion about Nvidia’s Sniper and EVGA’s overclocked GTX 550 Ti later this week.  Stay tuned, there is a lot coming from us at ABT.

Mark Poppin

ABT Senior Editor

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